


let's talk

by orphan_account



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:42:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28257123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: December 24, 2002Leorio and Kurapika meet Christmas Eve
Relationships: Kurapika/Leorio Paladiknight
Comments: 5
Kudos: 12





	let's talk

The cafe was nearly empty around midnight. Leorio had watched giggly couples and nagging children enter and exit the store front for hours, biding time by cups of lukewarm coffee and absorbing the kitsch depictions of evergreens and cottages mounted on the walls. Sleep enticed him, heavy on his worn mind from an intense hospital shift.

He rubbed his temples, felt his sideburns and wondered if he shaved well enough and shooed off the waitress who visibly itched to close shop. Leorio offered an awkward smile, blamed it on the Christmas Eve traffic and groaned at how stupid he looked, yet not once finding the strength to leave.

He'll come. He won't. He'll come. He won't. Leorio knew the steps to this dance all too well, letting it play like a record as he swirled his spoon in an untouched latte. Even the Christmas jukebox had circled back to the first entry in its hours long track list, the rattling of sleigh bells starting back again and striking Leorio with familiarity that echoed sadly.

The view outside was black and flurried by snow. It was falling fast enough to pile well over a foot tall, and Leorio had to decide whether or not sleeping where he sat was an option. Judging by the cashier's impatient scowl, it was not, but maybe if the weather got bad enough he'd have an excuse to slump in his chair, dream away the wait and find himself faced with a warm smile. The frost settling on his fingertips would melt as he held the other's hand.

Or, at the very least, he'd get a good nights rest for once, knowing that when he woke there would be the slim chance of seeing him, hearing him, remembering the way he said hello.

Leorio distantly recalled that his clearest memory of Kurapika's voice was in the way he said his goodbyes.

When he awoke the window colored blue and the snowstorm had stopped. The hands on his watch pointed to it being 5 a.m. and to the fact that he was a hopeless idiot. The store was empty and the plates before him had been cleared. The cafe lights were off, save for the twinkling garlands bordering the ceiling.

He tilted his head and stared up at them, let their flickering glow bask his crushing dissapointment. The silence soon drowned his thoughts in nothing but hazy longing and fatigue.

A quick rap at the window and the silhouette patiently hovering threw Leorio into a spinning mess. Suddenly he was nineteen scrambling to the glass with that former inelegance, nose pressed up and eyes growing wide and wider like he used to passing a store filled with whizzing and whirring and very expensive toys. Leorio felt the want of his childhood, gleaning the certainty of what was before him and studying in disbelief the beauty of those unattainable things.

Kurapika's eyes glittered from what seemed like tears, settling over a color like red rust, veins pouring into the whites of them. His lip quivered into a smile. Leorio managed a meek wave.

The sadness present in his face wasn't what startled Leorio. He had prepared himself for that, the frail frame and the slitted frown, fickle appearance for a fickle man.

What had Leorio forcing his breathing to normal was how unchangingly beautiful Kurapika still was. It was enough to make him feel self conscious for lifetimes, have his hands ghosting over his face in a mirror to understand how almost angelic Kurapika was. His haunting looks were something Leorio realized didn't fade from pain or deprivation. It, unfairly, etched his features darker, more prominently. It terrified Leorio but all he wanted now was to hold the gaunt stranger between his palms and kiss the color back into his cheeks.

Kurapika opened his mouth, breathed and let it fog over the window, tracing his finger in the mist. Leorio mused at the playful greeting, like he couldn't bear the invisible barrier between them after crossing continents to find one another again. Years and years of patiently waiting, impatiently wanting. Leorio was so enthralled by the motion of Kurapika's finger that he hadn't realized the jukebox was playing faintly in the corner as the time changed to six, crooning the sleigh bell blues once more.

_I'm sorry. Let's talk._

The words scribbled over were in perfect alignment, letters sized evenly and nothing like shakiness present in them. Rehearsed, calculated, almost condescendingly perfect. It felt wrong for Leorio to feel hurt from the very attributes that led him to fall for Kurapika in the beginning, and yet the words sprawled across Leorio's vision didn't account for any of the feelings they shared between the other, not like the tears staining the rare letters over the years. He scowled and read the words over and over and tried to understand why they made him feel so inexplicably hollow.

And then, quietly, the realization pounded, the repetition of the past becoming too nauseating and too obvious. Leorio looked up from the words and knowingly smiled back at Kurapika, playing his game of pleasantries like it didn't scar deeply. He wondered, not the first time, how Kurapika managed to conceal such agony in a body all shadow and waning light.

He went to open the door, boots shuffling into a more sobered pace, reluctant in the way he turned the knob.

He knew Kurapika, and that greeting, now trailing down the window in condensed drops, already felt like a goodbye.

**Author's Note:**

> I've wanted to write this scene forever and I didn't know how to approach it. It's only fitting I figure it out while hungover


End file.
